Never Have I Ever showcases Tamil American identity

Mindy Kaling’s show on Netflix has been hailed as a watershed moment for Tamil representation on American mainstream entertainment

The Ponnuswamy family in Aurora, Illinois have been binge-watching the fourth and final season of high-school drama series, Never Have I ever, for the past few days.

Latha Ponnuswamy had been watching the show with her two high-school going daughters Madhi and Akshara. Latha says, “We have lived in the US for years and my younger daughter was born here, still I haven’t had a single show on television, which I have sat together to watch with my girls.”

READ: Desi rom-com ‘Never Have I Ever’ on Netflix’ top 10 (August 22, 2022)

“Never Have I Ever, was the first show that we watched together as a family and related it completely with the dynamics between our culture and the American lifestyle our kids are living with,” she says. “It was a special show and it opened up the space for proper Tamil representation in America.”

Interestingly, despite the fact that the United States is home to 300,000 Tamil-Americans, there haven’t been many shows or movies depicting specifically Tamil characters.

Recently, The University of Houston partnered with the Indian government to expand its teaching and research on Tamil language, and culture.

The University and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) signed a memorandum to establish the ICCR Chair of Indian Studies, a position to be held by a visiting scholar from India with expertise in Tamil studies beginning this fall.

While things are changing on the academic level, not much has been done to show an appreciation for regional Indian languages outside of scholarly circles.

Read: Mindy Kaling’s ‘Never Have I Ever’ wins People’s Choice Award (November 19, 2020)

Chandra Chettiar, a Tamil American who lives in Texas says, “For years, the Indian characters we saw on American TV were heavily stereotyped. Slowly, things changed and we saw more Indian faces on American TV but they were mostly North Indian.

“I think for a long time and even till today, Americans do not know the diverse subcultures within India and how refreshingly diverse they can be,” Chettiar says.

“But the onus of introducing it also lies on us. So, hats off to Mindy Kaling for creating characters that were real but yet not shown. I hope she is not the last one to show us that.”

The show with its often racy depiction of high school life in America was also an eye-opener for many Indian American parents who have seen the clash between culture at home and culture of their kids’ social circles.

As Latha Ponnuswamy says, “The show also opened up a space for dialogue for parents to talk to their kids about struggles of balancing family expectations with the lives they live in mainstream American society.”

READ: Mindy Kaling stunned by success of ‘Never Have I Ever’ (May 28, 2020)

What may come as a refreshing and a much-needed change was also the fact that the show with its comic timing and humor introduced many Tamil concepts. The characters were never caricatured and the cultural differences were never seen in an apologetic light.

The fact that the makers of the show also roped in a Tamil-Canadian actor Maitreyi Ramakrishnan also struck a chord with the audiences who say they would love the show and hope more such shows showing regional Indian nuances are made.